Strategius

For the Roman senator, see Strategius Musonianus. For the Byzantine patrician, see Strategius Apion.

Strategius was a 7th-century monk of Mar Saba. He wrote a sermon on the siege and sack of Jerusalem in 614 and its aftermath, the forcible relocation of some of its inhabitants to Ctesiphon and the efforts of the Patriarch Zacharias to stiffen their faith in the face of persecution. Despite some deficiencies, this "account is of great value to the historian, as long as it is handled judiciously."^[1]

Start of an 11th-century copy of the Georgian text, from a manuscript written by Prochorus the Iberian and now in the Bodleian Library

Although originally written in Greek, the Greek text is lost. The sermon survives in Georgian and Arabic translations.^[1] The Georgian text is found in three manuscripts. The earliest dates to around 1040 and was copied at the Monastery of the Cross in Jerusalem.^[2] In a later 13th-century copy, it covers sixty-six octavo pages.^[3] The full Arabic translation is found in three manuscripts and an abridged version in two more.^[1] Both the Georgian and Arabic versions have been published along with translations into Latin.^[4] Nikolai Marr translated the Georgian text into Russian. He argued that the Georgian translation was made from an Arabic version in the 10th century.^[3] There is also a partial English translation from Georgian.^[5]

Strategius, sometimes called Antiochos Strategos, has been tentatively identified with the monk Antiochus of Palestine, but this is unproven.^[6]

Notes

1. Howard-Johnston 2010, pp. 164–167.
2. Garitte 1960, pp. i–ii.
3. Conybeare 1910, p. 502.
4. Georgian: Garitte 1960; Arabic: Garitte 1973 and Garitte 1974.
5. Conybeare 1910, pp. 502–517.
6. Kazhdan 1991.

Bibliography

• Conybeare, Frederick C. (1910). "Antiochus Strategos' Account of the Sack of Jerusalem in A.D. 614". The English Historical Review. 25 (99): 502–517. JSTOR 549886.
• Garitte, Gérard, ed. (1960). La Prise de Jérusalem par les Perses en 614. Louvain: Secrétariat du Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium.
• Garitte, Gérard, ed. (1973). Expugnationis Hierosolymae A.D. 614 Recensiones Arabicae. Vol. I: A et B. Louvain: Secrétariat du Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium.
• Garitte, Gérard, ed. (1974). Expugnationis Hierosolymae A.D. 614 Recensiones Arabicae. Vol. II: C et V. Louvain: Secrétariat du Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium.
• Howard-Johnston, James (2010). Witnesses to a World Crisis: Historians and Histories of the Middle East in the Seventh Century. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Hoyland, Robert G. (1997). Seeing Islam As Others Saw It: A Survey and Evaluation of Christian, Jewish and Zoroastrian Writings on Early Islam. Feltham: Darwin Press.
• Kazhdan, Alexander (1991). "Antiochos Strategos". In Kazhdan, Alexander (ed.). The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-504652-8.